Petrarch was
the first man (in 1336) to climb a barren mountain, the Mont Ventoux in
Provence, voluntarily undergoing a certain amount of fatigue for sheer
delight in the beauty of nature. This was a great, an immortal deed,
greater than all his sonnets and treatises put together. In a long
letter which has been preserved to us, he describes with much spirit and
erudition this extraordinary ascent, before whose profound significance
all the Alpine exploits of our time shrink into paltry gymnastic
exercises.
The beauty of nature discovered and appreciated, interest began to be
evinced in the relationship existing between the various phenomena and
there arose a desire to obtain ocular proof of what was written in the
venerable books--perhaps even make new discoveries. The first man of any
importance in this direction was the German Albrecht Bollstaedt (Albertus
Magnus), who, although he contributed more than any other man to the
promulgation of Aristotelian philosophy, wrote a book on natural history
founded on personal observation; his great English contemporary,
however, Roger Bacon, is the true father of modern experimental science.
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